A VOLTAIRE AND HIS TIMES. write the history of France! But, instead of playing this noble part, Voltaire pandered to the irreligious principles and tastes of his countrymen. "He led his age," says M. Bungener, "by following it; he served it as it desired to be served more." An upright man, if he had not been courageous enough to denounce the vices which flourished beneath the throne. and threw from that elevation a poisonous shadow over the land, would at least have the immorality which disgraced the court of Louis XV. to draw forth his censure. He even dedicated one of his poems to Madame de Pompadour, thus giving the lustre of his talents to the cause of debauchery. N able work entitled "Voltaire and his Times," from the pen of a distinguished French writer, has recently appeared. If the world presents us anywhere with an instance of brilliant but misdirected-gave it wit and fine verses, but nothing talents, it is to be found in the memoirs of this once celebrated individual. We open the work, not for the sake of criticism, which we leave in other hands, though we can honestly recommend its perusal to all who wish to see the eigh-been silent. But Voltaire saw nothing in teenth century, especially as it was in France, stripped of the meretricious garb in which it had been the fashion to clothe it, and exhibited in its true colors. Our object is to draw a moral lesson from its contents. If history has any power to teach by example, we shall surely derive some advantage from pausing for a moment before the grave of Voltaire, and asking, in a spirit of severe and righteous charity, what he was and what he did. Indeed, we are scarcely at liberty to de-ness, the forms and principles of the men cline this task in the present day, when infidelity is raising its old pretensions, and attempting to renovate the world without the aid of divine truth. We shall gain some knowledge of the moral power of skepticism, by surveying the character of him who was recognized for half a century as its chief apostle. Voltaire began his literary career in evil times. The ambitious and dissolute reign of Louis XV. had poured a flood of immorality through France. Political oppression had forced the mass of the people to think for themselves. In doing this they did not separate the chaff from the wheat, but condemned everything, whether good or bad, which seemed to have any connection with existing institutions. The fearful excesses which marked the close of the century were then beginning to germinate in the bosom of the nation. Here was a noble task for a man of popular talents, combined with integrity and patriotism to instruct the people in sound principles, to rebuke the levity and licentiousness of the age, to enforce the sacred claims of truth, and, while exposing the superstitious practices of the Romish Church, to assert the reality and necessity of that pure religion which is founded upon the word of God. If Voltaire, and those writers who made him their model, had done this, how differently might we have had to If we wished for a mirror of the eighteenth century we should find it in Voltaire; or, to choose a more appropriate figure, his life is a camera obscura in which we behold, surrounded with dark who swayed in his time the intellectual scepter of France. With perfect candor we can say that the more we see of these men, the better insight we obtain into their real character, the more heartily do we despise them. Condorcet, D'Alembert, Grimm, Diderot, Helvetius, Voltaire, and their colleagues of the Encyclopédie, were the chiefs of a conspiracy against everything which bore the name of religion, or could even remind men of the existence of God. In this unholy war their tactics were as good as their principles, but no better. To strengthen their influence, they had to make themselves out great men. This was easily accomplished, since they were all agreed. There was a tacit understanding that each should burn incense to all the rest, on condition that all the rest burnt incense to him. Their vanity was astounding. One is almost tempted to think that their impious hatred of the very name of God arose in part from a desire to secure all the worship of mankind for themselves. It is difficult to read without a blush the fulsome language in which they addressed each other. A specimen or two will suffice. "I was asked the other day,' writes Voltaire, 'what I thought of the Eloges of M. de Condorcet. I replied, by writing on the title-page, Justice, accuracy, learning, clearness, precision, taste, elegance, and nobleness.' Has he occasion to speak of Marmontel? Our age must have lain sweltering in the mud had not the fifteenth chapter of Belisarius been written.' Has he to speak of La Harpe, on the announcement of a new piece from his pen: Europe is waiting for Melanie,' says he. In his correspondence with D'Alembert, we find perpetually, 'My dear great man -my universal genius-adieu, thou man who art above thine age and countryadicu, great man—adieu, eagle,' and the like; the whole, to give higher relief to these magnificent expressions, amid familiarities and obscenities of all sorts." Only think of" the age" being rescued from ruin by a chapter of Marmontel, and all Europe standing in breathless expectation of a work by La Harpe! After this it was a poor compliment to D'Alembert, to say that he was above his age and country. Poor men! their dust has long since mingled with its parent earth, and their very names are vanishing from the memory of mankind, while the inspired productions of the fishermen of Galilee are daily winning new converts to the cause of truth and righteousness. But, were they honest in thus flattering each other? According to our author, far from it. They did it, partly to create a factitious reputation, which might be of service to the cause of infidelity, and partly to get themselves flattered. The compact was as hollow as it was profane. Voltaire, and the men with whom he acted, were perpetually vaunting the superiority of philosophy over religion. It would be worth asking whether their philosophy deserved the name, if there were any room for putting such a question. But the fact is too obvious to be doubted for a moment Their philosophy was falsely so called; it was a mixture of vanity and verbiage; bold assumption and fine talking, nothing more. But what sort of influence did their philosophy, such as it was, exert? Did it make them upright, honest, and philanthropic? Did it tend to purify their hearts and inspire them with generous and disinterested sentiments? Christianity has done this for millions who were destitute of the intellectual advantages which they enjoyed. We are justified in demanding what their boasted philosophy did for them. Let us see. Voltaire had certain notions respecting war. When it suited him he could rave about its in humanity, but at other times he could treat both its principles and the horrors which flowed from it with the coolest indifference. His model hero, Frederic, King of Prussia, surnamed the Great, had conquered Silesia. Our readers will remember how he suddenly broke into the Austrian dominions with a powerful army, the bloody struggle that ensued, what battles were fought, and how many thousands fell. At the close of the war, Frederic wrote its history, and therein confessed that he was induced to enter upon the war merely by ambition, interest, and the desire to be spoken of, combined with his having plenty of troops and money, and being of a rather vivacious character. There was some nobleness in making the confession; but why does it not appear in his printed book? Because Voltaire persuaded him to expunge it. Frederic was an infidel, and such a confession might have damaged the cause of infidelity. While the Seven Years' War was yet raging, we find Voltaire writing thus: "I must tell you that I have been crying, Vive le roi, on hearing that the French have killed four thousand English with the bayonet. This was not humane, but it was necessary.' Necessary! another of those words which depict the man and his epoch." Again he writes: "" 'People talk still of two or three massacres. What then are we to do? Why, present Tancred in December, print it in January, and laugh!'" This is the book which we have already mentioned as the one he dedicated to Madame de Pompadour. A few years after the termination of the Seven Years' War, Prussia and Austria joined in the first partition of Poland. It is well known how that act of injustice imbittered the last hours of Maria Theresa. She had been only a subordinate actor in the tragedy; the chief part was played by Frederic. But who suggested to him so foul a crime as the wanton overthrow of a neighboring state? Alas for the philanthropy and liberalism of our philosopher! The suggestion came from Voltaire, and it was not his fault if France did not do for Geneva what Frederic did for Poland. Such sympathy did he feel for the work of carnage, that he invented a machine, a sort of chariot armed with scythes, by which he expected that six hundred men and as many horses would be able to destroy an army of ten thousand men. Writing to Catherine, Empress of Russia, who, though she had acquiesced in the murder of her husband, was a saint with the Encyclopædists, he says of the Turks, with whom she was then at war: "Will these barbarians always attack as hussars? Will they never present themselves in close array, so as to be run through by some of my Babylonian cars? I should wish at least to have contributed to your killing some Turks; people say that, for a Christian, it is a work agreeable to God."" But there are still finer specimens of his philanthropy. He had a special enmity against the Jews, because they seemed to furnish a standing proof of the truth of Christianity. Adverting to the fearful cruelties exercised upon them in Spain in the fifteenth century, he says, "No one could pity them.' Alluding to the exaggerated accounts of the crimes they perpetrated in the isle of Cyprus, during the reign of the emperor Trajan, he says, 'They were punished, but not so severely as they deserved, since they still subsist.”” "It is said,' he writes in another letter, 'that the Rev. Father Malagrida has been broken on the wheel. God be praised!" "I have a letter saying that three Jesuits have at length been burned at Lisbon. This is very consolatory news."" much for the tender mercies of infidelity. Who does not see here the germ of those miseries which his unhappy country has since endured? 6 So There was naturally little enthusiasm in Voltaire; but we must make an exception to this statement when Christianity is the subject of his pen. He is never cold when attacking the foundation of our faith. Here he applies himself in good earnest, like a man whose heart is in his work. Still, even in this exceptional case, the single passion which gave life and warmth to his enthusiasm is vanity. "I am tired of hearing them say,' he writes in 1761, that but twelve men were required to found their religion. I will clearly show them that no more than one is required for its destruction." But deep as was his hatred to Christianity, he had not always the honesty to avow it. He would sometimes fall into a passion if a person accused him of infidelity. This, however, was only in keeping with his usual conduct. To disown some production of his pen, when it happened to be unpopular, was a common expedient. For example, he labored for twenty years at a poem of a very improper nature, and at last he published it. The character of the work was such that government took alarm, and threatened to prosecute its author. How did Voltaire contrive to escape the storm? In the easiest way imaginable. He declared the work was not his, and denounced all who asserted the contrary as base libelers. He speaks of the very idea that the work was written by him as the crowning point of the infamous manoeuvers of his enemies. An unfortunate literary broker, believing the work to be the production of Voltaire, went and offered him fifty louis for the manuscript. Voltaire succeeded in getting the poor fellow put in prison for his supposed calumny. "In 1764, when his Philosophical Dictionary first began to be circulated in Paris, he wrote thus to D'Alembert: The moment there is any danger, I beseech of you to let me know, in order that I may disavow the work in all the public papers, with my ordinary candor and innocence.'" So much for the candor and integrity of those who wished to be regarded as the regenerators of their age. It was quite in harmony with such conduct for Voltaire to profess himself at times very religious. We should certainly not have expected beforehand to find this most enlightened sage among relic-hunters. When we are told that Voltaire had the pretended piety to solicit at the hands of the pope the hair shirt of St. Francis, and to obtain a dispensation for eating meat on Fridays, it is difficult to repress a smile of credulity. Yet so it was. We are justified by such facts in pronouncing his character to have been a tissue of falsehood. Truthfulness never gave him a moment's concern. When his assertions squared with facts, the agreement was, in a moral sense, accidental. He spoke the truth sometimes, undoubtedly, but then it was because it happened to suit him--not because he felt himself laid under any obligation to do so. EVERY principle and doctrine of Christian faith is, and ought to be, founded upon the Scripture; and whatsoever principles and doctrines are, not only not contrary, but even not according thereto, ought to be denied as anti-christian.-Robert Barclay. THE THE BASTILE. HE French people having in 1789 taken possession of the Bastile, that ancient state prison, where so many political crimes had been committed, where such fearful vengeance had been summarily and secretly executed, the whole edifice was ransacked, and totally destroyed. On that occasion, a great iron cage was found, which proved to be that in which the Cardinal de Balue, minister of Louis XI., had expiated for eleven years the atrocious guilt of being the inventor, but for other victims, of the instrument which thus served for his own punishment. In another dungeon was discovered a second iron cage, smaller, in the shape of a bowl, wide at top, and terminating at the bottom in a point so narrow, that any one shut up in it could neither sit, nor lie, nor stand upright. The last-mentioned cage was the only one now remaining, of two, which had served, three centuries before, as the prison of two young princes, Henri and François de Nemours, sons of Jacques d'Armagnac, who in the reign of Louis XI. was constable of France. It is well known to any who have read French history, that d'Armagnac had leagued with the Dukes of Burgundy and Brittany (Bretagne) to deliver up France to the English. This plot, which would have snatched the sceptre from the hands of the French monarch, was discovered to Louis when just ripe for execution, and Jacques d'Armagnac was instantly arrested, and sentenced to be beheaded. He had two sons so young at the time of his treason and its punishment, that when these poor children were asked if they had not been the accomplices of their father, they might have answered with the lamb in the fable: "How could I, when I was not born?" Nevertheless, by a refinement of cruelty, which even the barbarism of the age cannot palliate, much less justify, Louis XI. ordered white robes to be put on the two boys, and thus attired, they were placed under the scaffold on which their father was standing, and when he received the fatal blow, the executioner sprinkled the white robes and their innocent heads with the blood of the criminal. Nor was the vengeance of Louis satiated by the punishment of the constable. The two orphans, dyed in a father's blood, were taken to the Bastile, dragged to the subterranean dungeons, and there put into the two iron cages described before. Henri de Nemours was then eight years old, and his brother François very nearly seven. The unhappy children, thus condemned to continued torture, had no other consolation but putting their hands through the bars of the cages to grasp each that of the other. And all day long, and all night long the young brothers were hand in hand. François, the younger of the two, was the most desponding. "I am so much hurt here," said he, "surely we cannot live long this way." And he wept. "Come, come," replied Henri, "a pretty fellow to cry at your age; besides you know papa never liked that we should cry. You see they are treating us like men of whom they are afraid, so we must not behave like children. Instead of crying, let us talk of poor dear mamma." And then the poor victims of the cruel policy of Louis XI. talked of days gone by, and of the beautiful domain of Loctour, where they had passed the first years of infancy. Once again did they climb their own hills of Armagnac, once more wander in its thick woods, once more run races in the broad walks of the baronial park. But alas! it was only in imagination-yet the young prisoners found a momentary oblivion of their sufferings in that blessed magic of memory which makes the present cease to exist for us, by bringing us back into the past. One other slight alleviation to their wretchedness was afforded to these infant martyrs by a very little mouse, which, having crept out of its hole one day, was at first so terrified by the sight of the young princes, that it ran back as fast as possible to its hiding-place. In vain did the children try to coax it; it was not till the next day that, pressed by hunger, she ventured out to pick up some of the crumbs which they had purposely let fall from the cages. By degrees, however, she became accustomed to the voices of the children, and a few days after her first appearance, she grew so tame, that she climbed up to the cages of her patrons, and at length used to go from one to the other, and eat out of their hands. But it was a small thing to the vindictive Louis that the blood of d'Armagnac had, stained the fair hair and white robe of his children. He heard that the two little prisoners of the Bastile were enduring their sufferings with fortitude-that, through custom's wondrous power, they had learned to sleep soundly in their iron cage, nay, even to awake with an almost cheerful " good morrow on their lips. He heard it can any heart that responds to one human feeling believe that it but impelled him to devise fresh torture for them? He issued orders that a tooth should be extracted every week from each of the children. When the person appointed to this office, a man too long accustomed, as the minister of the king's savage cruelty, to the sight of suffering, to shrink from inflicting it, was introduced into the dungeon, he could not suppress an exclamation of pity at the spectacle of the two unhappy, yet patient little creatures. He was, however, obliged to tell the object of his visit, and when the brutal order of the king was announced, the little François uttered piercing cries, and Henri endeavored to plead with the executioner. "Mamma," said he, "would die of grief if she heard of my little brother suffering so much. O! pray, sir, spare him-I entreat of you not to put him to such pain; you see how weak and ill he is already." The executioner of the king's cruel purpose could no longer restrain his tears. "There is no alternative," he said-but he sobbed as he spoke-"I must obey; I risk my life even by delay. My orders are to hand the two teeth to the governor of the Bastile, in order that he may lay them before the king." "In that case," said Henri, "you must only take two from me. I am strong and can bear it, but the least additional suffering would kill my brother." am to pay for us both." And the heroic child obtained his wish, and his self sacrifice gave to the governor of the Bastile the two teeth he was required to lay before the king. The cruel order was executed in its utmost rigor; every week the minister of his barbarous will repaired to the dungeon, and every week Henri paid his own tax and that of his brother. But the strength of the noble boy was at length exhausted; a violent fever raged in his young veins; he gradually grew weaker, and his legs being unable to support him he was obliged to kneel in the cage. At length a day came when he felt that he had only a few minutes to live, and making a feeble effort to extend his hand once more to his brother, he said, "All is over, François, I shall never see mamma again, but, perhaps, you may yet be taken out of this horrible place. Tell my darling mother that I often spoke of her, and that I never loved her so much as now that I am dying. Farewell, François," gasped he, as his breath failed him, " you will give our poor little white mouse her crumbs every day. I depend upon you to take care of her; will you not, dear François ?" He heard not the answer of his brother; death snatched him from his sufferings, and he passed into that place "where the wicked cease from troubling and the weary are at rest." It may be presumed that Louis was softened in favor of the last of the Nemours, for, after the death of Henri, François was released from his iron cage and transferred to one of the ordinary dungeons. At length the soul of the cruel monarch was required of him, and the reign of Charles VIII. began. His first act was And now a long and touching contest to set at liberty all the victims of the susarose between the children as to which picious and hateful policy of Louis XI. should suffer for the other. Surprised Among the rest, François de Nemours and affected, the man hesitated for a few was released, permitted once more to bemoments, and might, perhaps, have finally hold the sun, once more to lay his droopyielded to the dictates of pity, and have ing head on the bosom of his mother; but shrunk from executing his revolting office, the tortures he had undergone in the horhad not a messenger come from the gov-rible cage left him all his life lame and ernor to inquire the cause of his dilatori- deformed. ness. The messenger knew that longer delay would be regarded as a crime-he approached Henri and extracted a tooth: the child repressed every expression of pain, and seeing the man moving toward his brother's cage, he cried, "Stay, you are to take another from me-you know I UNREASONABLE and absurd ways of life, whether in labor or diversion, whether they consume our time or our money, are like unreasonable and absurd prayers, and are as truly an offense to God.-Bishop Law. |